In the active voice, there is a subject that executes the action: "Carlos drinks wine."
The concept of active voice appears in the field of grammar and is linked to a way of conjugating verbs. Also known as direct voice , the active voice refers to an agent subject that executes an action. In the case of the passive voice , however, the action is suffered by the subject ( patient subject ).
For example: "Carlos drinks wine." In this case, the verb drink ( "bebe" ) is conjugated in the active voice: "Carlos" is the active subject that executes the action ( "bebe" ). In other words, the subject carries out and controls the action in question.
That same idea could be expressed in the passive voice in the following way: "The wine is drunk by Carlos." As you can see, "Carlos" is no longer the active subject, but the subject is "The wine" . This subject, in turn, is passive: it suffers the action. The verb drink, on the other hand, is conjugated as "is drunk."
From active to passive voice
It is important to emphasize that the two sentences have the same meaning: "Carlos drinks wine" and "The wine is drunk by Carlos" refer to an identical situation. The choice of active voice or passive voice depends on what you intend to highlight . Generally, the active voice is used when you want to highlight the person who performs the action (in the case of our example, that "Carlos" is the one who "drinks wine" ).
When converting the sentence from active voice to passive voice, in short, the subject is modified (it stops being "Carlos" and becomes "The wine" ) and the verb (from "bebe" to "is drunk" ).
The subject carries out the action when the active voice is used: "Mariana wrote a poem."
The direct object
One of the peculiarities that are used with respect to the active voice and the passive voice is that they allow the direct object to be discovered in a sentence. Yes, it is like that and this is how language teachers indicate it to their students.
Specifically, there are many teachers who tell students that if in a sentence they have doubts about what the direct object is, what they have to do is transform the active voice into passive.
Other examples of active voice
Many other examples that can be used to understand these two types of voices are the following:
– «Manuel writes a poem» (active voice) and «A poetry is written by Manuel» (passive voice).
– “Eva performs a song” (active voice) and “A song is performed by Eva” (passive voice).
– «David paints the wall» (active voice) and «The wall is painted by David» (passive voice).
– “The monarch distributes gifts among his subjects” (active voice) and “The gifts are distributed by the king among his subjects” (passive voice).
The notion in English
Not only in Spanish the active voice and the passive voice are used. In English, for example, special emphasis is also placed on students learning to use one and the other. Thus, for example, those who are learning the aforementioned language receive a series of basic guidelines on the aforementioned passive voice such as these:
– It should be used when the important thing in the sentence is the thing or person that is the object of an action.
– It can also be used when it is not known who performs the action.